Chuck Shepherd's News Of The Weird

Norwegian
public television (NRK), which introduced the now-legendary continuous, live
log-burning show (12 hours long, with “color commentary” on the historical and
cultural importance of fire), scheduled a new program for this week in its
appeal to serenity (labeled “Slow TV”). On Nov. 1, NRK is to televise live, for
five hours, an attempt to break the world record for producing a sweater, from
shearing the sheep to spinning the wool and knitting the garment (current
record: 4 hours and 51 minutes, by Australians). (In addition to the log, NRK
viewers have been treated to live cams on a salmon-fishing boat and, for five
days, on a cruise ship.) Said an NRK journalist, “You would think it’s boring
television, but we have quite good ratings for these programs.”

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Extract of cockroach is a delicacy among
some Chinese, believed able to miraculously reduce inflammation, defy aging and
cure tuberculosis, cancer and cirrhosis. Quartz reported in August that Yunnan
province is a Silicon Valley-type business center, where pulverized roaches can
sell for the equivalent of about $89 a pound, and five pharmaceutical companies
have contracts with ranches that have formed the Sichuan Treasure Cockroach
Farming Cooperative. (In August, a start-up farm in Jiangsu province was,
police suspect, vandalized, allowing at least a million cockroaches being
prepared for market to flee to adjacent neighborhoods.)

Hipster Haven: Two fearless
entrepreneurs inaugurated services recently in faux-fashionable Brooklyn, N.Y.
Lucy Sun, a Columbia University economics major, began seeking work as a
$30-an-hour “book therapist,” to help readers find the “right” book to read or
give as a gift, with attention to clients’ “specific situations.” In Brooklyn's
Greenpoint neighborhood in September, the stylish Eat restaurant began
reserving certain nights’ meals to be experienced in total silence. On opening
night, a Wall Street Journal reporter
noted one throat clearing and a muffled sneeze, but barely any other human
sound. Some diners were won over; another said it felt like “being 50 and
married.”

It’s expensive to go broke in America.
Detroit, which filed for bankruptcy protection in July (in the face of debts
estimated to be at least $18 billion), will nonetheless be on the hook for
bankruptcy legal fees that could total $60 million under current contracts. A
fee examiner has been hired to keep the expenses in line, but he charges $600
an hour.

Medical Marvels

Blood
clots can be especially dangerous, often requiring urgent, harshly invasive
open-heart surgery to remove the clot before it can be fatal, but a team from
UCLA Medical School reported breathlessly in September that a “minimally
invasive,” cutting-edge machine worked just as well: a vacuum cleaner. When a
62-year-old man arrived at an emergency room with deep vein thrombosis,
AngioVac lines were inserted in the leg and neck and sucked out the
24-inch-long clot. The patient was back home and full of energy a week later.

Weird Animals

“Pig
Drinks 18 Pints and Has Fight With Cow” read one August headline from Port
Hedland, West Australia, after rampaging wild pigs stole and drank 18 beers
from a campsite. International Business
Times, summarizing recent research in September, noted that moose,
especially, are attracted by fermenting apples; that prairie voles are
prominent social drinkers (consuming much more available alcohol when other
voles are around); and that African elephants often turn violent to secure the
fermenting fruit of the marula tree (although the elephant would require 1,400
pieces of fruit to generate the seven gallons of alcohol that—if consumed all
at once—would match humans’ legal limit for driving).

Least Competent People

Criminals
Not Ready for Prime Time: A woman notified police in Fremont, Calif., in
September that a thief had rummaged through her vehicle at night but had taken
only a low-end gift-shop item—leaving behind a checkbook, some money and an expensive
pillow. The item, she said, perhaps looked like a small bag of marijuana, but
in reality was a novelty-store bag of dried elephant dung. “It’s a great gag
gift,” she said.

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